A number of devices have been developed for picking up animal waste, such as: U.S. Pat. No. 3,733,098 (Tobias), U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,697 (Kahan), U.S. Pat. No. 3,841,686 (Gallo), U.S. Pat. No. 4,225,174 (Hennessy), U.S. Pat. No. 4,247,139 (Greib), U.S. Pat. No. 4,248,468 (Hastings), U.S. Pat. No. 4,951,987 (Lebeau) and U.S. Pat. No. 7,695,035 (Sumner).
Some of these devices can be used with plastic bags, such as: U.S. Pat. No. 4,273,370 (Kjaer), U.S. Pat. No. 4,323,272 (Fortier), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,476,296 (Gross).